Thank you for joining me on this journey. It's never been easy, and I don't ever expect it to be. There may be times when you don't agree with me, and that's OK. Never be afraid to share your feelings with me, that's what I'm here for and what has kept me going. I'm not a licensed professional, but I have more than 20 years experience with mental illness.
You can find our podcast, Voices for Change 2.0 at
www.blogtalkradio.com/leftofstr8

Monday, December 7, 2015

The Urge (Trigger Warning - Discussion of self-injury)

Ironically,
it’s still quite embarrassing for me to come forward and talk about particular
issues that I’m going through.Even
after everything that I’ve said publicly.I think I will always be afraid of what people will think.Thankfully, even though it is in the back of
my mind, I rarely let is stop me from being the same brutally honest person
that I have always been.

Most
of you know by now that I’ve written a book.
You may also be aware that the sales are not nearly what I had hoped
for. That has been a source of stress
for me, but I felt like I was handling it pretty well, for a while. You may
also not be aware that I have had little to no relationship with the original
publisher of the book. After the giant
catastrophe that occurred with errors in the book, he hasn’t been around much.

Last
night, I found myself having to reach out to him again about more errors. Quite frankly, it caused one of the worst
panic attacks I’ve experienced in quite some time. I was irrational, I was sobbing, and I couldn’t
breathe. It was like the dam broke. It started a flood of pain and heartache that
I’ve just been swallowing since November 1st
when I had maybe 10 people in attendance at my book signing. What kind of a fool am I? How could I ever possibly think that I could
be a success. Everything that I’ve ever
touched has turned to shit. The ONLY
thing I haven’t screwed up yet is my marriage
and thank GOD for that.

So,
the darkness set in. The depression, the
sadness, the feelings of worthlessness, of hopelessness. I feel like someone draped a lead blanket
across my back and shoulders. It’s inescapable.
Last night, I tried to go to bed early, hoping I might feel better with
sleep, but I felt even heavier when I woke up.
I started this project, attempting to get my book on another format, and
it wasn’t working. I had to call the
company and when I hung up, I just lost it.

The
feelings of failure were suffocating me.I was hyperventilating.I didn’t
understand a word she said to me, and I had no idea how to fix a thing.Suddenly, I felt like a small child lost in
the woods.Which way do I go?Where do I turn?It felt like there was no answer, so I was
frozen in my fears.

All
I could think of was, how stupid are
you? What the hell made you think you were
capable of succeeding at anything? So,
you told people you were depressed, big damn deal…nobody cares.

This
repeated in my head obsessively…until it happened. Something I truly thought I had let go
of. It was the images of cutting. It starts out slowly. I just sort of picture what I might use, what
the cuts may look like. Then the
cravings kick in…the deep burning desire to punish myself for being a failure.
To feel the rush of having cut hard enough to bleed. The rush calms the
nerves, and everything slows down for a few minutes. The need runs through my head like a song on
repeat.

I’ve
never in my life told anyone outside my closest family members or therapists
that. The first thing I did was tell
Joe. God how I hate having to be that
kind of person that interrupts her husband’s work day to tell him this horrible
news. As bad as that news is, there’s
even better news. I DIDN’T CUT. That’s the real accomplishment in this
story. Even now, it’s buzzing around in
my brain. I know it probably sounds
really stupid to someone that hasn’t experienced it. Maybe you think it’s a dumb reason to want to
do it. None of that matters. What matters is, I had horribly painful urges
and I made it through them.

I’m
not going to sit here and run down the laundry list of things that are going
wrong for us right now, that’s not what this blog is about. What matters is that these things are painful
enough…life altering enough that for one moment in time, I wanted to hurt
myself to stop thinking about these things.
To punish myself for not living up to the expectations I had for myself.

I’m
sure there are many people that don’t understand.It’s OK.I don’t need you to understand.If you still want to be my friend, what I need is maybe a, “hey, are you
OK?” once in a while.You would be
amazed at how much feeling cared about can change your outlook on
self-injury.

Is
my book a success? No. Is it the only dream that I truly ever
had? Yes. Do I feel like a gigantic failure? You bet your sweet ass I do. I long for someone to come along that has
some fantastic ideas or really wants to help me get my name out there…because I
am exhausted. I beat myself up for being
too tired to spend more time online trying to reach out to anyone and everyone
in hopes of hitting it big. Maybe to the
average person, none of this is reason enough for me to want to hurt
myself. Well…good for you, truly. I’m glad for you not having to experience
this.

Do
I feel better about my life? No…not at all, honestly. However, I have an ever-so-small glimmer of
hope in the back of my mind know that I am still able to maintain my 2 years
and 6 months clean of self-injury.

About Me

I have been happily married to the man of my dreams for 15 years. We have 5 cats that we adore, and a little house that we are renovating. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 19. It has been a constant struggle in my life, and has caused a great deal of turmoil.

Despite my illness, my husband has stayed by my side and I have learned to grow from my challenges. I am now a published author and my book is available on Amazon!